Page 130 of Burn Like An Angel

“No one is on our side, Mr Montpellier. Ever.”

“Enzo is fine,” he tells me for the fifth time.

Piercing amber eyes sweep over me. We’ve been talking for hours, running through every single detail. Years of information from my first day in Priory Lane to scaling the security fence at Harrowdean.

I never thought I’d be laying out my life story in brutal black and white for a total stranger. One whose job is to judge whether I’m deserving of his help. After all I’ve done, I wouldn’t be surprised if Enzo threw us back out on the street.

When you’re drowning, it’s easy to justify pushing other heads beneath the water so you can stay afloat. It’s necessary, right? They’d do the same to you. Only in the aftermath does the price of evil come knocking.

“I have one more question.” He snaps his notebook closed, placing the pen on top.

“Shoot.”

“Why’d you do it? Become their stooge?”

“Do you ask all Incendia’s victims this?”

“Most of them were admitted into the program by force.” His mountain-sized shoulders lift in a shrug. “I have one guy who even worked for them before he was imprisoned and tortured for several years.”

Acid swarms in the back of my mouth. “So I’m the bad guy for choosing to do what I did?”

“Do you deny it?”

Focusing on the coffee table, I avoid his stare. “No.”

“Why, then?”

“I’ve done things I’m not proud of.” I lace my hands over my roiling stomach. “A lot of people have gotten hurt because of my actions.”

Looking down at the battle wounds decorating my arms, I struggle to find the right words. The events that have led me to this sofa, recounting a tale too harrowing for most to fathom, feel alien.

Did I do all those things? I hold the memories. Bear the scars. It must’ve been me.

I spent so long detached from my morals, I didn’t care who I was hurting. At least part of me didn’t. Peddling management’sagenda became second nature. I fanned the flames so they could study us all.

Sick, right?

I’m under no illusions.

It’s an old cliché. Hurt people, hurt people. Is it the same for those who’ve been abandoned? Do we dole out cruelty to ensure our own survival at all costs because no one else is coming to save us?

No one has ever helped or been there for me. Not since Holly. I’ve done everything myself, starting with getting revenge. Leveraging my grief into power was nothing more than a calculated business move.

“Every time I sold pills to an addict or blades to a cutter, I knew what I was doing.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “It was just… inconsequential. I needed the power. The control.”

Listening attentively, Enzo doesn’t look judgemental as I expected. The gentle look of understanding is back, crumbling his gruff exterior. I’m surprised he hasn’t run for the front door yet.

“Their pain guaranteed my freedom,” I try to explain. “Doing things that made me sick meant I would live when Holly didn’t get to. It was a desperate trade off.”

He nods in acknowledgement. “In my experience… desperation is the source of most evils.”

“Don’t excuse what I did.”

“I’m not.” Enzo smiles sadly. “Perhaps it was simply an inevitable side effect.”

How this towering pillar of strength can hold so much soft-hearted concern, I can’t quite understand. He isn’t what I expected from Sabre’s second-in-command.

Despite his tactics, I hold the full, unfiltered truth back. Enzo is playing the good guy, but I’ve fallen into that trap before.

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